Politics

Why Boehner's Lawsuit Against Obama Could Work

Since Speaker John Boehner announced his intention late last month to sue President Obama for overstepping his legal authority, his supporters have frequently noted how few executive orders he’s actually handed down. To date, Obama has only issued 182, while the predecessor he likes to blame for everything issued 291.

But the real issue, of course, is not the number of executive orders issued during one’s presidency but rather their legality. And it’s here that Boehner and company have a real, substantive case against the president.

Obama has issued at least 32 legislative fixes to the Affordable Care Act, softened laws against illegal immigration, and stripped the work requirement from President Clinton’s welfare reform—all with the stroke of his pen. In 2012, perhaps emboldened by the apparent inability of Congress to stop him, Obama declared the United States Senate to be in recess in order to install three nominees on the National Labor Relations Board.

The Supreme Court recently curbed Obama’s ability to circumvent Congress, and now Boehner is readying a lawsuit to do the same. On June 26, 2014, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Obama had violated the Constitution by naming those three nominees to the NLRB.

On the same day the Supreme Court invalidated Obama’s recess appointments, he doubled down on his vision of executive authority by flippantly dismissing Boehner’s lawsuit. “So sue me,” the president told reporters when asked about the suit. Fortunately, Boehner has elected to ignore this display of petulance and continue with his landmark attempt to sue the president.

While Obama and his cheerleaders in the media sneer at the notion of executive overreach, noted constitutional scholar and George Washington Law School Professor Jonathan Turley believes Boehner’s suit could prevail. “I think there is a case against the president for exceeding his authority…I happen to agree with the president on many of his priorities and policies, but as I testified in Congress, I think that he has crossed the constitutional line,” Turley told MSNBC the day Boehner announced his suit.

“When the president went to Congress and said he would go it alone, it obviously raises a concern,” Turley added. “There’s no license for going it alone in our system, and what he’s done is very problematic. He has shifted $454 million of the ACA from appropriated purpose to another purpose. He’s told agencies not to enforce some laws, like immigration laws. He has effectively rewritten laws through the active interpretation that I find very problematic. While I happen to agree with him, I voted for him, I think this is a problem.”